


The Bus Ride

by Butterynutjob



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Bickering, Canon-Compliant, Crowley POV, Episode 6, Humor, I think I'm funny, M/M, Missing Scene, The Bus Ride, bus driver - Freeform, hand holding, mention of past Crowley/Shadwell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 18:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19431841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterynutjob/pseuds/Butterynutjob
Summary: Crowley just wants Aziraphale to stay with him. Aziraphale is the one who started the bickering.





	The Bus Ride

Crowley was fine. He was cool. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself on the bus ride home, trying not to feel the warmth of Aziraphale pressed against his right side, trying not to lean into it as his very nature urged him. 

Aziraphale had been to his flat before, and Crowley even might have had hope a few times that the angel would stay the night, but this...this was new territory for them. Things had changed. The music that they had been dancing to for centuries had finally changed, and Crowley didn’t know what the next steps were. 

Aziraphale didn’t know either, he was sure. In fact, Crowley knew Aziraphale well enough to know that he was anxious, by the ramrod-straight way he was sitting and how his brow furrowed and unfurrowed as if it was dancing, too. But he could also tell that Aziraphale did not want Crowley to know he was nervous, because his folded hands were perfectly, deliberately still, instead of worrying each other as they did typically. Because Aziraphale was usually anxious in some way, but not like this. 

Crowley suspected that Aziraphale hadn’t even decided if he was going to stay at Crowley’s flat. Knowing the angel, he was still waffling, not wanting to make a decision, hoping something or someone would rescue him from having to decide to do something that his superiors would frown on. 

It was weird that they weren’t talking. They were always talking. Bickering, usually, because Aziraphale was so infuriatingly wrong all the time. 

“I think Tracy and Shadwell make a very cute couple,” Aziraphale said suddenly into the silence. Both Crowley and the bus driver startled a bit at the sudden outburst. 

“I don’t,” Crowley said bluntly. “Shadwell doesn’t deserve her. He tried to—“ Crowley coughed instead of saying “kill you.” The last thing he wanted to do was scare Aziraphale away. No, best to be surly; Aziraphale was always comforted by that. 

“She has put up with a lot from him, yes,” Aziraphale said softly. “But when it mattered, he was ready to defend her from Satan himself.”

“Eeeehh, alright, but, he’s no catch. Good with his hands, sure, he’s a locksmith. But not…” Crowley trailed off as Aziraphale slowly turned his head to look at him in astonishment. “What?”

“You are speaking as if...Crowley. How well do you know Shadwell?”

Crowly scratched the back of his neck and shifted in his seat. “Errm, well, haven’t spent much time with him recently, but there was a time…”

“Don’t even think about lying to me!” Aziraphale cried. 

The outburst was far out of the context of the conversation, and even the bus driver peered in his rearview mirror at them with a frown.

Crowley put his hand on Aziraphale’s knee. “Shh, Angel, I wouldn’t. It’s not—it just— it never seemed pertinent.”

“Never seemed pertinent?” Aziraphale hissed. “That you were...were... _fraternizing_ with someone else? That wasn’t pertinent?” He pushed Crowley’s hand off his knee. 

Crowley slumped back and rubbed his face tiredly, under his sunglasses. “Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

That seemed to give Aziraphale pause. Crowley realized he had just put the ball in Aziraphale’s court, which is exactly what Aziraphale didn’t want...but maybe it was what he needed. 

They proceed for about another mile in silence before Aziraphale said softly, “I want to know.”

Crowley took a deep breath and then exhaled, hard. “Alright. Yes, I...fraternized with Shadwell.”

“Can you be more specific?” Aziraphale asked in a clipped voice. 

“I—“ Crowley sighed again. “I don’t want to fight, Angel, please, not tonight.”

“It’s not like you are the only one who has...dallied... with humans,” Aziraphale said stiffly. 

Crowley shrugged with one shoulder and looked out the window into the black night. “I assumed that.”

“You...did? Is that why...you and Shadwell…?” 

Crowley shifted again. How had they gotten here? This was not the kind of new territory he had been hoping to explore. 

“I frat— _had sex_ with Shadwell because...well, he was pretty,” he said finally, heavily. “I mean, not now. When he was younger. And you had just rejected me for the twenty-ninth time and I...wanted...someone,” he finished lamely. 

He was too afraid to look at Aziraphale for his reaction. 

“I...rejected you?”

Crowley turned to look at Aziraphale in disbelief. “Are you seriously going to pretend that you never have?”

Aziraphale’s brow was back to battling itself. “I never meant to hurt you,” he whispered. “I had to, I—“

“I know,” Crowley said softly. He swallowed and took a chance: he picked up Aziraphale’s hand in his own. “But you don’t have to now.”

Aziraphale stared at their clasped hands with wide eyes, but he did not pull away. Instead, he blinked several times in rapid succession. 

“What if it all goes wrong?” he whispered. “What if they come for you? What if—“

“Oh, fuck ‘what if’,” Crowley burst out, snarling. “If they come for me tomorrow, I don’t want to die _not_ having spent the night with you!”

The driver very deliberately kept his eyes only on the road this time. 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered. His face held so much tenderness that Crowley almost felt burned by the glory of it. Aziraphale put his right hand on top of their already-clasped hands. “My dear, I would sooner see every angel and demon in the entire universe permanently discorporated before I would let anyone harm you.” Although Aziraphale’s voice was tender, it held an undercurrent of steel.

Crowley let his lips quirk into the barest smile. “That’s great, Angel. Really. Thank you. But it’s not what I was getting at.”

The bus stopped. “I...this must be your stop?” The bus driver said in confusion. 

“Yeah, thanks, mate.” Crowley turned to face Aziraphale. “Please. Stay with me.” 

Aziraphale squeezed his hand as they both got to their feet. “Of course, dear. I mean, I can’t risk you thinking Shadwell is a better fuck than I am.”

Crowley forgot how to walk for a moment and slithered right down to the floor. 

Aziraphale chuckled. “Oh dear, have I shocked you?”

Crowley stood back up, shaking his head broadly and making a noise which might have eventually become a word. They got off the bus together.

The driver heaved a sigh of relief. “This has been the weirdest fucking day of my life,” he muttered to no one, idly wondering where the hell in London a bus could do a U-turn.

**Author's Note:**

> I intended to write something entirely else. Oh well!


End file.
